two or three inches long, in shape like a sausage, and as white as a
bolster. Her one duty in life is to lay eggs; and it must be confessed
she discharges her function with complete success, for in a single day
her progeny often amounts to many thousands, and for months this
enormous fecundity never slackens. The body increases slowly in size,
and through the transparent skin the long folded ovary may be seen,
with the eggs, impelled by a peristaltic motion, passing onward for
delivery to the workers, who are waiting to carry them to the
nurseries, where they are hatched. Assiduous attention meantime is
paid to the queen by other workers, who feed her diligently, with much
self-denial stuffing her with morsel after morsel from their own jaws.
A guard of honor in the shape of a few of the larger soldier ants is
also in attendance, as a last and almost unnecessary precaution. In
addition finally to the soldiers, workers, and queen, the royal
chamber has also one other inmate--the king. He is a very
ordinary-looking insect, about the same size as the soldiers, but the
arrangement of the parts of the head and body is widely different, and
like the queen he is furnished with eyes.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN

(1585-1649)

[Illustration: WILLIAM DRUMMOND]

It seems to be the mission of many writers to illuminate contemporary
literature and so to light the way for future students, rather than to
make any vital contribution to the achievement of their time. Such
writers reflect the culture of their own day and represent its ideals;
and although their creative work may be slight, their loss to
literature would be serious. Among these lesser men stands that
sincere poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. In Scotland under the Stuarts,
when the vital energy of the land was concentrated upon politics and
theology, native literature was reduced to a mere reflection of the
pre-Spenserian classicism of England. Into this waste of correct
mediocrity entered the poetry of William Drummond, an avowed and
enthusiastic follower of the Elizabethan school, a finished scholar,
one of the typical Scottish gentlemen who were then making Scottish
history. Courtier and trifler though he was, however, he showed
himself so true a poet of nature that his felicities of phrase seem to
anticipate the sensuous realism of Keats and his successors.

William Drummond, born in 1585, was a cadet of the historic house
which in 1357 gave in marriage